Kirkepiscatoid

The discussion today is about “change” as it applies to our spiritual lives. She uses Ecclesiastes as an example: “A time for tearing down and a time for building up.” She cites the “problem with change” is that it means the “undoing of what went before it.”

Reflection Questions:

1. Meditate on the passage from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for tearing down and a time for building up.” From the standpoint of your faith, what “time” are you in now? What are you doing about it?

I actually think both are going on with me sequentially right now. If I were to imagine my faith as a house, I really don’t think I’m demolishing the house and building a new one. It is more like a giant rehabbing...more like tearing it down to the walls and studs, reconfiguring the rooms, adding on to the structure, and making the foundation more sound. I am making my faith more “live-able” with God’s help. It reminds me a little of what I was physically doing to the flood-damaged houses in Iowa City—ripping out wet moldy insulation and drywall, disinfecting what’s left, getting it down to the bare studs so it can be inspected.

What I am “doing” is I am mostly being faithful at practicing the disciplines of my faith...regular prayer and study...just like doing this exercise for 40 days! A lot of this “soulwork” is incredibly exposing and revealing. There is a little bit of “I told you so” in this. I was told over a year ago, that part of the journey I was on would require me to “throw out a lot of things you know to be true,” and at the time I was told this I just gave the person who told me this what we joke about as the “Ok, if you say so” look, where I am trusting totally on his expertise and experience but at the same time I am thinking he’s incredibly full of shit...but agree to ride along b/c he’s my friend and this kind of advice is in his job description. At the time I thought, “Why the hell would you throw out something you know to be true? Don’t you want to embrace the truth? What kind of circular bullshit is this?”

Over time, though, I am discovering the meaning of this. The truths that were necessary to sustain us in certain phases of our lives, perhaps even SAVED our lives, may have outlived their shelf life, or have gotten moldy because they are not as important for this part of our life’s journey. So they sit, and get moldy and wet, and can even become toxic. I think part of my journey in the last year, in particular, has been to assure myself that the spiritual frame of my “house” is sound so more can be done to it. To do this, I have had to remove a lot of moldy truths, but I do have trouble now and then actually taking them to the garbage!

2. Do you tend to resist change or welcome it? Why?

I wish I could say I welcomed it, but I think certain people in my life would be yelling “Liar, liar pants on fire!” to that one if I did! So I will qualify that by saying, “Ultimately, I welcome it...but only after I have exhausted myself with my last gasp of resistance...and I have been told I have an above average capacity for resistance, so that can take a while.” I have to be shown good reason to change. Even then, I have to consider every reason NOT to change. I think “resisting to the point of exhaustion” is part of my process, because by then, I’m like, “Ok, ok, whatever, I’m so damn weary, anything will feel better than this.”

3. Have you experienced the difficulty of the “undoing what went before?” If so, describe the experience and its outcome.

The hardest one for me is to give up my tendency to fight instead of discuss and work things out. When conflict occurs, my tendency is to fortify the walls of “my turf,” flare up and “defend my borders.” There was a time I HAD to do that literally to physically protect myself. My natural reaction when I cannot do that is to pull in my ears and hide in my cave. Standing and talking about it is not in the equation. I am slowly learning how to do this, but I’ll be honest, I don’t enjoy this process, it hurts, and there is a part of me that says if I don’t fight, I’m a wuss, and I struggle with that. But since I cheated and peeked ahead and I see “weakness” is the topic tomorrow, I’ll hold that thought! But in this situation, the “outcome” is still a work in progress.